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IPCC’s Dr. Pachauri Doesn’t Pass The Smell Test

Despite the fact that the lame-stream media hasn’t made a big deal out of Climategate, there are plenty of others registering their disgust with the whole thing. The guy whose name gave us the word “moonbat”, George Monbiot, has figuratively called for “heads to roll”. Yesterday, it was Clive Crook at The Atlantic in a blistering piece (do read it).

One of those in the middle of all this is IPCC Chairman Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri.

Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), warned that western society must undergo a radical value shift if the worst effects of climate change were to be avoided. A new value system of “sustainable consumption” was now urgently required, he said.

Here is what is interesting; the Observer called Pachauri a climate scientist, but he is actually an engineer (more on this later).

Naturally, this only applies to the little people, we peasants. As Bolt explains, Pachauri flew over 443,000 miles during the 19-month period between January, 2007 and July, 2008. Within that time frame Pachauri, who shared the Goreacle’s 2007 Nobel “Peace” Prize, took a weekend break to fly from New York to Delhi to play cricket, going back to New York after the match was over (Bolt links to this story). Steyn, who also links to the cricket story, wonders how many polar bears Pachauri sacrificed (my word) with all this air travel. Steyn ends with his usual flair:

P.S. I like the headline on Dr. Pachauri’s climate’n’cricket story: “Heat On Cricket Pitch Warms This Climate Change Laureate.” If you’re waiting for some journalist to ask him about the contradictions between his lifestyle and the one he wants the rest of us to submit to, that sound you hear is cricketers chirping.

In January 1999, Dr R K Pachauri was appointed as Director, Board of Directors of the Indian Oil Corporation Limited (a Fortune 500 company) for a period of 3 years.

IndianOil is ranked 105 on the Fortune 500, up 30 positions since 2007; it is also the largest company in India. Now, I don’t know if Pachauri has any stock in the company; but it is quite fascinating that before becoming head of the IPCC, Pachauri was a part of a competitor of ExxonMobil and other oil firms and cartels. This apparent conflict of interest, with the possible financial windfall that could come Pachauri’s way, doesn’t pass the smell test by any stretch of the imagination. Like everything else about Climategate, don’t expect the usual suspects in the media to mention this.

It’s also good to review another scientific fraud that took 40 years to uncover, mostly because there were too many who believed the science was settled:

Back in 1912, a man named Charles Dawson found a skull that was proclaimed to be the proverbial “missing link”, a species that proved how humans had evolved from lower apes. Because of where it was found, the skull was proclaimed to be of an early human dubbed “Piltdown man”, and Dawson’s name was put into the scientific (Latin) name, eoanthropus dawsoni. Some questions about the skull’s authenticity came right away, as it should for good science; but, the general consensus (there’s that word again) was that it was genuine…Unfortunately, and what has been shown to be a black stain on science, is that in 1953 “Piltdown Man” was proven to be a fraud; it had turned out to have been a mix of human, orangutan, and chimpanzee skulls put together and artificially aged. Nobody knows if it was Dawson, who died in 1916, 37 years before the “species” that bore his name was shown to be a hoax, who created the fraudulent skull, or if it was made by someone else in collusion with Dawson, or if someone else built the skull and Dawson happened to be an innocent victim (and that’s all I’ll say about it).

As I mentioned after that, I am a believer in evolution, and don’t believe that the fraud known as “Piltdown Man” disproved evolution as a viable theory. But it does show that “consensus” from scientists is not a gauge in determining proof. Science should always lead to skepticism, because it is that skepticism that encourages scientific study and experimentation in order to find answers. I can honestly say that I don’t know if any global warming going on is a result of the activities of humans; but what I can say is that the scientific theory saying it is is definitely not settled, and should in no way be used by politicians to determine new policies, policies that would be hugely detrimental to the United States and its people. Or the rest of the world for that matter.